TIMBER.

The forests contain an inexhaustible store and endless variety of timber trees, many sorts of which are highly valuable and capable of being applied to ship-building and other important purposes.  On the western coast the general want of navigable rivers has materially hindered both the export and the employment of timber; but those on the eastern side, particularly Siak, have heretofore supplied the city of Batavia with great abundance, and latterly the naval arsenal at Pulo Pinang with what is required for the construction of ships of war.

TEAK.

The teak however, the pride of Indian forests, called by the Malays jati (Tectona grandis, L.), does not appear to be indigenous to this island, although flourishing to the northward and southward of it, in Pegu and Java; and I believe it is equally a stranger to the Malayan peninsula.  Attempts have been made by the servants of the Company to promote its cultivation.  Mr. Robert Hay had a plantation near Bencoolen, but the situation seemed unfavourable.  Mr. John Marsden, when resident of Laye in the year 1776, sowed some seeds of it, and distributed a quantity amongst the inhabitants of his district.  The former, at least, throve exceedingly, as if in their natural soil.  The appearance of the tree is stately, the leaves are broad and large, and they yield, when squeezed, a red juice.  The wood is well known to be, in many respects, preferable to oak, working more kindly, surpassing it in durability, and having the peculiar property of preserving the iron bolts driven into it from rust; a property that may be ascribed to the essential oil or tar contained in it, and which has lately been procured from it in large quantities by distillation at Bombay.  Many ships built at that place have continued to swim so long that none could recollect the period at which they were launched.

POON, ETC.

For masts and yards the wood preferred is the red bintangur (a species of uvaria), which in all the maritime parts of India has obtained the name of poon or puhn, from the Malayan word signifying tree in general; as puhn upas, the poison-tree, puhn kayu, a timber-tree, etc.

The camphor-wood, so useful for carpenters’ purposes, has been already mentioned.

Kayu pindis or kapini (species of metrosideros), is named also kayu besi, or iron-wood, on account of its extraordinary hardness, which turns the edge of common tools.

Marbau (Metrosideros amboinensis, R.) grows to a large size, and is used for beams both in ship and house-building, as well as for other purposes to which oak is applied in Europe.  Pinaga is valuable as crooked timber, and used for frames and knees of ships, being also very durable.  It frequently grows in the wash of the sea.

Juar, ebony, called in the Batavian Catalogue kayu arang, or charcoal-wood, is found here in great plenty.

Kayu gadis, a wood possessing the flavour and qualities of the sassafras, and used for the same purposes in medicine, but in the growth of the tree resembling rather our elm than the laurus (to which latter tribe the American sassafras belongs), is very common in the plains near Bencoolen.